Everyone jumped at the scream. Kimiko was looking into the face of a huge, white, bloodshot-eyed, hideous, bat. She stumbled backward through the braches to get away from it, lost her balance, and fell a couple feet from the campfire. Every eye fell on her. Omi instinctively ran over to her and helped her up, blowing his cover. Clay smacked his forehead. The bat turned to him and made a weird sound that got Clay's attention and caused him to jump over with Kimiko and Omi. Rustfoot's expression seemed to say 'Well this is an interesting situation'. Daggereyes's face was to the ground and she was biting her thumb knuckle. Raimundo looked annoyed. "Daggereyes, you were supposed to leave them there. Did you forget the why you went in the first place?"

"No. I – I thought I left them there. I swear, I told it short range."

"Apparently not short enough." He sighed. "Okay, let's get this over with."

Kimiko's anger rose. He said it like they were nothing more than bugs that needed to be squashed and that they weren't even decent enough to fight. Of course, he and his team did kick their butts pretty badly last time. Daggereyes got up, walked over the caravan door, opened it, and then turned to them and yelled "PRONTO JOGO VA!" Then she went in and slammed the door behind her.

The moment Daggereyes yelled, Omi felt something grip his upper arms and before he knew it, he was looking down on the forest. He looked up to see the monstrous bat. His reaction was the same as Kimiko's. He doused it in the face using the Orb of Tsunami. The bat let out a terrible ear-splitting scream and threw Omi to the side. Omi then realized how high he was. He got an idea when he saw he would be landing in a small narrow clearing. As he fell he fired a stream of water at the spot. The water pressure slowed him down until he finally stopped falling and he had the stream lower him to the ground. He stepped forward when something torpedoed by right where he was just standing. The bat flew back up into the sky and torpedoed itself and Omi again. Omi fired streams of ice and water at it, but it dodged them. Omi dodged it when it came at him. If Kimiko or Raimundo were there they might have commented on how much this looked like a scene from King Kong. This went on for awhile.

When the bat took Omi Kimiko tried to leap for him, but someone grabbed her ankle and hurled her toward the trees. Kimiko aimed her body to slide between the branches, then grabbed onto one and threw herself to the ground below, landing on her feet. She brushed off her robes and looked up just in time to see Rustfoot practically flying toward her. She leaned out of the way so he just brushed her robes. Instead of landing a face-plant in the dirt like Kimiko had hoped, he landed perfectly on his feet, grinning madly. "You ain't going nowhere. You and I have a score to settle." As he spoke, his voice seemed to get weaker, like he had a frog in his throat. "You know, it took two weeks for that scrape to heal and it hurt like hell."

Kimiko's eyes grew to the size of saucers. She remembered why his voice and hair was familiar. No, that couldn't be. But she knew she was right when the kid's nails grew four inches long and when his mouth and nose pushed away from his face. His grin was now made up of dagger-sharp teeth and his nose had flattened and blackened. Rust-red hair covered his ears as they changed into their wolf state. He wasn't in his complete wolf shape as he was when Kimiko had seen him in the nymph's forest, but he had changed enough to let her know it was him.

Kimiko wasn't sure if she wanted to scream, run, or both. Then Rustfoot growled and attacked and Kimiko went into her warrior mode. She was careful not to be pierced by the teeth or claws for fear the tales of werewolf's wounds might be true. She knew she shouldn't be surprised seeing a werewolf after seeing a dragon, a ghost, wood nymphs, and goblins, but still. This was just too weird.

She tried using absolute focus to fight this creature, but she found it hard while there was something nagging at the corner of her mind. Something to do with that albino. And that bat. She knew she should be able to get this connection right off the bat. Bat . . . boy . . . bat . . . boy . . . no. A vampire? Would Raimundo really travel with a vampire? What was she thinking, she hardly knew him anymore. Anything was possible. And that would explain why the boy was so pale. Vampires didn't have blood, did they? That was why they sucked other peoples' blood. Wait, the bat had taken Omi . . . oh no. Kimiko was so occupied with fighting the Rustfoot and this disturbing thought, that she didn't realize Rustfoot was leading her farther away from the clearing.

Clay started to go after Kimiko when Rustfoot threw her, but Rustfoot shoved him down and followed Kimiko instead. Clay heard a chuckle behind him. "That meant go, in case you were wondering."

Clay slowly turned his head to Raimundo and glared. "You're teaching everyone here Portuguese now?"

Raimundo shrugged. "Hey, no one here knows it so it works for code."

Clay didn't know how to answer that. He got up, then realized what just happened. "So you're paring all of us up? Don't have enough backbone to fight your own battles?"

"If I recall the last times we fought in Mundo Um, I think I did a pretty good job whooping your butts by myself."

Clay recalled as well. "So why don't you see if you can do it again?"

"Remember what I told you back in the goblins' forest?"

Clay growled. "That forest is home to the wood nymphs."

Raimundo put on that I-know-something-you-don't smirk that Clay hated. "Riiiiiiight. Anyway, do you remember what I told you?"

Clay couldn't. He was too angry then to remember what. He shook his head slowly, teeth gritted.

"I said that I was really hoping for a chance to talk to you all. But no of you were ready to listen yet. You're still not-"

"Why should we listen to you, you treacherous snake?" Clay snarled.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. In order to fully understand what's going on, you have to put aside your anger and-"

"Don't you dare lecture me." Clay was getting madder listening to Raimundo talk to him as if he didn't know any better and looking at that smirk. Although he never really wanted to rub this in Raimundo's face, he knew it would guarantee that smirk gone. "I don't need to be lectured by someone who couldn't make it to the next level."

To Clay's shock, this just made Raimundo laugh. "You really don't understand at all, do you? This has absolutely nothing to do with the stupid promotion."

Clay took this in. "Then why did you leave?"

"Because I was sick of the temple. Speaking of which, how's Master Fung doing?"

Clay couldn't remember the last time he felt so enraged. "You were sick of the temple? That was why you threw away our friendship and went to the dark side?"

Raimundo's smirk finally vanished. For some reason that calmed Clay a little. Raimundo stared at the ground for a couple seconds like he was thinking, then looked back up Clay. "No."

Clay's anger subsided and was replaced with confusion. "What?"

"That wasn't why. How is Master Fung doing?"

"Wait a sec, Raimundo-" That was definitely a mistake.

Silvertongue's eyes flashed and Clay was flat on the ground before he knew it with something cold and smooth pressed against his throat. A voice hissed in his ear. "My name is Silvertongue."